Combatting Cartels to Secure Our Southern Border| 11.30.24

Summary

Morning Wire Podcast Summary

Episode: Combatting Cartels to Secure Our Southern Border
Release Date: November 30, 2024
Hosts: John Bickley & Georgia Howe
Guest: Congressman Dan Crenshaw

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1. Introduction: Addressing Border Security and Cartel Influence

In this compelling episode of Morning Wire, hosts John Bickley and Georgia Howe engage in an in-depth discussion with Congressman Dan Crenshaw about the escalating threat posed by Mexican cartels and the illegal fentanyl trade at the United States' southern border. The conversation sets the stage by highlighting the detrimental impact of past border policies and the urgent need for a robust strategy to dismantle cartel operations.

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2. Formation of the Cartel Task Force

Congressman Crenshaw explains his selection to lead a congressional task force dedicated to combating Mexican drug cartels. He emphasizes the inadequacies of the existing border security bill (HR2), particularly its lack of focus on cartel-related issues.

Crenshaw (00:51): "There was nothing in that bill that dealt with cartels and that we had no real plan to deal with cartels from a legislative perspective."

He describes the task force as a bipartisan effort aimed at researching and formulating specific policy objectives to effectively address cartel influence.

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3. Policy Recommendations to Combat Cartel Influence

Crenshaw outlines a multifaceted approach to tackling cartel operations both within the United States and internationally. His recommendations include legislative reforms, enhanced funding for specific agencies, and strategic collaborations with Mexico.

Legislative Reforms: One significant achievement is the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which now includes the ability to collect intelligence on entities involved in the creation of synthetic opioids.

Crenshaw (01:41): "We actually tie our own hands behind our back from intelligence collection using FISA against entities like cartel affiliates and Chinese companies that make the precursors for fentanyl, we don't even allow it."

Increasing Fines and Funding: Crenshaw advocates for increasing fines for entities that facilitate cartel operations and allocating more resources to agencies like Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) to track financial flows, including Bitcoin transactions, used by cartels.

Crenshaw (02:20): "If you mislabel, for instance, air cargo purposefully and you're actually caught... make that $5 million or, you know, something like that."

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4. Building a Partnership with Mexico

A critical component of Crenshaw's strategy is forging a stronger partnership with Mexico. He draws parallels between the current situation in Mexico and Colombia in the 1990s, suggesting that a similar cooperative approach could yield significant improvements in combating cartels.

Crenshaw (03:10): "Mexico has always given America the stiff arm, and that dates back to memories from the 1840s and Mexican American War."

He expresses optimism about the new Mexican administration's potential willingness to collaborate more effectively with the United States in dismantling cartel operations.

Crenshaw (04:05): "We're really hopeful about the new administration of Mexico. They took power in October, and I believe they will be a lot more pragmatic in allowing us to help them rid their country of what is effectively the most powerful terrorist insurgency in the world."

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5. Assessing Cartel Operations Within the United States

The discussion shifts to the extent of cartel operations on U.S. soil. Crenshaw explains that while direct cartel members from Mexico might not be prevalent in U.S. cities, local gang members who collaborate with cartels handle drug distribution and other illicit activities.

Crenshaw (07:49): "They're the bosses of these people operating in any location in the US... but a lot of the traffickers coming across are probably U.S. citizens."

He also touches upon the issue of "gotaways" at the border—individuals fleeing from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—suggesting that their actions indicate deeper criminal activities beyond simple immigration issues.

Crenshaw (08:05): "If you're actually trying to evade border patrol, you're trafficking something, you have weapons, you're a criminal, there's something different about you that's the truth."

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6. Future Steps and Legislative Initiatives

Looking ahead, Crenshaw outlines his immediate priorities, which include persuading the Speaker to establish a select committee focused on combating cartels. He highlights the inefficiencies of existing committee structures and argues that a select committee would streamline legislative efforts and provide necessary resources.

Crenshaw (09:41): "I'm formally calling on us to create a select committee to actually combat the problem."

He underscores the importance of expanding the task force's capabilities through increased staffing and funding, envisioning substantial progress with the establishment of a dedicated committee.

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7. Addressing Gang-Related Activities: The Case of Tendar Agua

In the final segment, the conversation shifts to gang-related activities within the United States, specifically the rise of Tendar Agua operating in at least 16 states. While acknowledging the complexity and his limited expertise in this area, Crenshaw emphasizes the intertwined nature of local gangs and international cartels.

Crenshaw (10:36): "Criminals look for other criminals to work together with. That's how all of this works."

He notes that while Tendar Agua's exact operations require further investigation by the FBI and law enforcement agencies, the overarching strategy remains focused on dismantling the cartel infrastructure that supports such gangs.

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8. Conclusion

Congressman Dan Crenshaw's insights provide a comprehensive overview of the challenges and potential solutions in securing the U.S. southern border against cartel influence. His emphasis on legislative reform, enhanced agency funding, and international cooperation with Mexico presents a strategic roadmap aimed at eradicating the pervasive threat posed by powerful drug cartels.

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This summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from the November 30, 2024 episode of Morning Wire featuring Congressman Dan Crenshaw. For a deeper understanding, listeners are encouraged to tune into the full episode.

Transcript

[A]

After years of destructive open border policies during the Biden Harris administration, Congressman Dan Crenshaw has been tasked with combating the growing influence of Mexican cartels and the illegal flow of fentanyl at our southern border.

[B]

We sat down with the Navy SEAL veteran to hear his plan to build a strong partnership with Mexico in order to dismantle the cartels and secure America's border. I'm Daley Weyer, Editor in Chief. John Bickley with Georgia Howe, November 30th, and this is a Saturday edition of Morning Wire. Joining us now to discuss his plan to secure our southern border and dismantle the Mexican drug cartels is Congressman Dan Crenshaw. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. So last year you were tapped by the speaker to lead the task force to combat Mexican drug cartels First. How were you chosen?

[A]

Well, because this was on the heels of passing HR2, you know, our flagship border security bill. And I had the complaint to the speaker that there was nothing in that bill that dealt with cartels and that we had no real plan to deal with cartels from a legislative perspective. And that was the point I brought up to him and a demand I had that we either do add it to HR2 or figure something else out. And from that conversation came the idea of the task force, where a task force can be many things in Congress, but it's usually a bipartisan group of members that use their time to research a very specific policy objective, in this case cartels. And that's how it started.

[B]

And what recommendations are you making for US Policy to combat cartel influence both domestically and abroad going forward?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, some of these things have already been done. Others still need to be accomplished, and a lot of it really depends on Mexico itself. That's one of the bigger lessons we've learned from all this research. To give you examples of things we've accomplished. Well, reauthorizing FISA was a huge one. During that reauthorization, we not only made a lot of changes and reforms to FISA that would prevent another crossfire hurricane, which I know a lot of people are concerned about, but we also added some capabilities. You might be surprised to hear that we actually tie our own hands behind our back from intelligence collection using FISA against entities like cartel affiliates and Chinese companies that make the precursors for fentanyl, we don't even allow it. We don't allow ourselves to collect on that. So we changed that with the Pfizer authorization, basically added a fourth category to the three categories of collection that currently exist. And that fourth category would be anyone involved in creation of synthetic opioids. So as before, we couldn't even collect on a broker or a banker or a driver for the cartels, and we couldn't collect on a company in China, you know, willingly creating precursors and illegally labeling, shipping them to the US And Mexico to make fentanyl that kills Americans. So now we can't. That was a pretty big deal. Now what do we want to do? Well, like, there's a variety of things that are frankly, low hanging fruit. I mean, if you mislabel, for instance, air cargo purposefully and you're actually caught, and so difficult enough to catch a CBP as an entire task force dedicated to that in LA, it's only a $5,000 fine. So, you know, this is barely even a scratch on the cartels or the companies facilitating them. So here's one quick law change is make that 5 million or, you know, something like that, easy ones. Sometimes it's just about funding certain agencies like HSI that are doing very specific work on tracking the money flows that the cartels use. You know, they're underfunded. They don't have enough licenses bought for a specific program that tracks Bitcoin, for instance. Sometimes it's just as easy as giving them that extra money so that they can buy the extra licenses and hire the extra analysts. Looking at the bigger picture, though, what you really need is a deal with Mexico. Mexico is not Colombia. But we do need to make the analogy because they're in very similar situations, just in different timeframes. Mexico is in the same situation as Colombia was back in the 90s. Colombia was a near failed state. You had the narco wars with the Medellin cartel and then the Cali cartel, which devolved into the guerrilla wars which continue to this day. But to far lesser extent, far lesser extent, I know from personal experience because I went to high school in Colombia. I was there during the height of the civil war against the guerrillas, the FARC at the eln. So the difference is the Colombians welcome American security cooperation in with open arms, and they always have. We have a very tight relationship with the Colombians, and as a result, you've seen a ton of improvement over the last 30 years. Mexico has always given America the stiff arm, and that dates back to memories from the 1840s and Mexican American War.

[B]

Right.

[A]

While for us Americans that history means nothing to us, it means a lot to them. At least. At least they say it does. Politically. Now you ask the average Mexican, I don't think it means all that much. I think your average Mexican would welcome Navy SEALs helping Mexican military special forces go after cartels. So what you really need is a plan Colombia, but a plan Mexico. And you can't do that until the administration of Mexico actually agrees to it. So, you know, we started that conversation when we introduced the authorized use of military force against cartels. Got it. Seems like years ago now at this point, the idea being that, you know, we. We want to signal from Congress that we want to give the legal authority to the president to actually take this on with the US Military. Now, does he really even need the authority? Not really sure he does, because we'd be operating alongside of an ally, Mexico, which the president and his authority to help and to aid. You know, we already do in many ways, but we want to make that authority clearer, and we want Mexico to ask for it. So there's a lot of things we could do from up here, and we have a list of legislative items. But in the end, what we're really hopeful about is the new administration of Mexico. They took power in October, and I believe they will be a lot more pragmatic in allowing us to help them rid their country of what is effectively the most powerful terrorist insurgency in the world. And I mean that wholeheartedly. Compared to ISIS nor Al Qaeda, they're by far the most powerful. They're integrated into every level of government. They have every weapon they can imagine. They have all the money possible. They are really, really powerful. And the Mexico needs our help to defeat them.

[B]

So you're hopeful that Mexico's regime will be more amenable to this, and then I assume that you have more confidence that a Trump administration will be more effective at this than the Biden administration.

[A]

Yeah, I have a lot more confidence. I mean, look, Biden didn't try to stop anything. You know, our agencies across the board, from FBI to CBP to HSI to the CIA have done everything they can. And I'm not going to say that Biden ever tried to stop them, but rhetorically, Biden never talks about this. He's never talked about the cartels or really fentanyl test. And you know why? Because there's an obvious nexus from the cartels to the border, which is a touchy issue for Democrats. Trump doesn't have this problem. So Trump can easily say that he wants to go off to Piccard. He has said it. He's put Tom Homan and former director of ICE as his borders are, and what is even talking about constantly in cartels so, yeah, there's a ton of political appetite to make this happen. And so it's our job in Congress to make it happen. The task force is a small way to do that. I'm formally calling on us to create a select committee to actually combat the problem. Because when you're looking at legislation, Here's a quick lesson in civics. We have all of these different committees of jurisdiction. It's a lot more complicated than you think. Even the simplest of bills can have three committees of jurisdiction. So it takes a long time to get things done. A select committee solves that problem. We did the same thing with Select Committee on China. That's how you get a difficult bill like the TikTok ban through it. So a select committee, I think, is the right avenue to do what we need, to do what we said we would do, and help Trump fulfill his promises.

[B]

Now, many talk about the cartel's operations in Mexico, but we're hearing a little bit more now about their operation and the extent of it here in the US what do we know there? How extensively are they operating on US Soil?

[A]

It's a great question, and it kind of depends on how you define operating. Now. Are there card carrying Sinaloa members just on US Soil? It doesn't really work that way. They're not that stupid. The way it does work is this entire business has become very much a market. And in any market, there are people who do certain things and specialize in certain things. You're not going to see Sinaloa members as the drug dealers on the streets of whatever city you're living in. You're going to see local gang members who grew up there on the streets, who have made deals with cartels and who take their shipments from the cartels. The cartels are ultimately facilitators, and they hire whatever facilitator they need in whatever area they need. So the answer to your question is kind of yes and no. Like, they have very deep ties because they're the bosses of these people operating in any location in the US But a lot of the traffickers coming across are probably U.S. citizens, you know, so it's a mix of both. But on the other hand, you know, I can point you to a million of my friends who might own property on the southern border. And they have, you know, they have night cameras up because they're looking for game and, you know, hogs and things like that. But once in a while, what they see is a bunch of people in military uniforms patrolling across. These are the types who want to get away from cbp, not turn themselves in. And you really got to wonder what they're doing. Those are the gotaways we talked about. We're talking about the border. There's almost 2 million gotaways under the Biden administration. And if you're trying to get away from border patrol, there's something really wrong because we all know what Biden's policies are. Most people have an incentive to actually just turn themselves into border patrol because they know they'll be let loose and paroled and they'll get a free ticket anywhere. So if you're actually trying to evade border patrol, you're trafficking something, you have weapons, you're a criminal, there's something different about you that's the truth. So to answer your question, it's complicated. It's a mix of both.

[B]

For you personally, with your work on this, what's your next steps in the coming weeks and months?

[A]

Well, I want to convince the speaker that we need a select committee because of jurisdictional issues. So that streamlines our ability to actually get some legislation done. Second of all, it actually gives us some staff. I've been working on this cartel task force. It's just me. It's literally just me at one de agent tasked and then it's just me and my staff. It's just not enough. I'm on two other committees. I have a one year old like, and I've still done a dozen trips across the US to try and figure out what we're doing first against the cartels and then figure out what needs to be done. We've actually managed to do quite a bit with no resources. Imagine what we can do with just some resources, which is what a select committee gives you.

[B]

Final question. This is not about Mexican cartels per se, but it is about gang related activity here in the US Trende Aragua is all over the news for very good reason. The latest is that they're operating in at least 16 states. What do we know about what they're doing and what actions are we taking to crack down on them?

[A]

Well, we know probably not enough. This has obviously hit the news really recently and come to everybody's attention very recently, happening under our nose. And this is a little bit out of my expertise. What I deal with is Sinaloa, the Jalisco cartels, Mexican affiliated cartels. Obviously there's these gangs. Are they affiliated with cartels? Probably. I mean, again, it's like, it's like I said, criminals look for other criminals to work together with. That's how all of this works, everybody owns a different part of the system. The Colombians producing cocaine in Colombia aren't Sinaloa, but a Sinaloa operative has a meeting with them every once in a while. They give them a call. They put it in orders, ticket business. So, you know, they're a Fortune 500 company, but they're also an insurgency, and every. All of these elements are part of that insurgency. And, you know, I don't know how to answer your question on Tandar Agua exactly, because that's really a question for the FBI that we're still looking into on how much they understand this threat and what we're doing about it. But it's. It is top of the list, top of the mind for the FBI and law enforcement in particular. I do know that.

[B]

Well, Congressman, thank you so much for joining us.

[A]

Appreciate you guys. Yeah, thanks for. Thanks for doing this.

[B]

That was Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw, and this has been a Saturday edition of Morning Wire.